Like a term paper for an English class, we find ourselves revising, tweaking…even erasing…the comments we had written on a number of our greeting cards in order to make them more uplifting, more encouraging, and…well…happier.

We hope our revised messages resonate well with you, and give you that “awww” feeling, or that “Aha, that’s just what I was looking for!” response. And if they don’t, just wait – they might be revised again to your liking!

We have a question for our customers. Which format do you prefer: portrait or landscape?

Most greeting cards found in stores are portrait, and I personally have a slight preference for that format.

However, Christmas cards are often landscape. In addition, we have a number of landscape images from some artists we’ve hired, and those work best on a landscape card. In addition, many of our “One Word on the Cover” cards have a landscape format, as this works best for them.

We hired a professional greeting card sales rep last December to evaluate our card line-up for possible sale in retail stores. We have good news and not-so-good news to report. First, the good news. She liked our Sheep line of cards, and thinks with a few minor revisions, they will sell. Some of our most popular-selling cards come from this line. Now, for the not-so-good news. She wasn’t enamored with our One Word on the Cover line, a new and I thought unique line that might sell well. Of the 100 or so cards in this line that we’ve created, she only liked a dozen. We plan to make some minor touches to our Sheep cards, and hope to place them in one or two stores by year-end (so stay tuned!).

In January or February of 2014, we would like to hire a Christian Greeting Card Sales Rep to evaluate our two primary lines of cards (Sheep, and One Word on the Cover) for possible distribution in Christian bookstores, churches, etc.

If you are one, please contact us.

If you know of one, please contact them for us (we’ll send you some free cards for doing so).

We’re rolling out a new line of greeting cards called, “One Word on a Cover.”

We created these cards to appeal to busy people who want a card with a short and simple message, but something that is unique too.

The cards have one word on the cover page (hence the name) in a large font, usually black. Although the word is the main idea for the message, it isn’t enough to know what might be said on the inside, and thus it creates an element of suspense or surprise. The messages are simple and to the point; usually one short sentence or two. Each card includes one gray scaled image on the cover page that relates to the word.

We’ve priced these cards at an introductory price of $2.49, which includes the cost of postage. We will likely raise the price 10% in a few months.

Thus far we’ve created 20 cards in this line, and we plan to create a few more in upcoming weeks.

Let us know what you think of this line of cards. Also, if you have a word you’d like us to use, please let us know that too!

We are in need of two insect illustrations. One will be shown on a Get Well card, the other a Birthday card.

The birthday card will have the image of a large bee (bumble or honey) on the cover page, with the word “JOYFUL” on the inside. The verse will be “be joyful always.”

The Get Well card will have an image of bug on the cover page, with the word “bug” plastered all around it in different shapes and sizes and colors. The message on the inside will read “Can’t wait to BUG you once you become “normal” again.”

If we use your image, we’ll pay you a small amount and credit your name and/or website on the back page of the card.

With the help of Drew at www.dreamdesignsweb.com, we added a new feature to our website that makes it easy to quickly review our cards. The feature was a suggestion from a friend of ours (thank you Sandi Geving).

Once you click on a card, you will be taken to a page that shows the card’s cover page, message, and a brief description of the card (why or how we created it, etc…). On this page, we added “next” and “previous” buttons that allow you to quickly advance to the next card, or review the prior card. As a result, reviewing dozens of cards in less than a minute is now a “snap.”

We hope you enjoy this new feature on our site, and if you have any suggestions on how we can make it even easier for you to order cards, please let us know.

We recently had a lot of fun using Adobe Illustrator to create a watercolor image of a butterfly and flower (see Adult Birthday cards).

We plan to create another half dozen cards or so with various watercolor images – mostly flowers, bugs, butterflies and maybe some birds. If you have any ideas on what we should draw though, please let us know!

We contacted a small group of customers and potential customers for their feedback on our website and greeting cards. To those who responded we say “Thank you,” as your comments were helpful.

Based upon the feedback we received, we plan to make the following changes to our site and cards:

Website

1) We will add a next button to one page on our site that allows a person to quickly move to the next card within a category without having to back out to see the cards in that category

2) We will make the site more compatible with the newest versions of internet explorer

Cards:

1) We will continue to “lighten up” the messages in a number of our cards. Our cards will always include a Bible verse, but some of the messages in our cards were viewed as “too deep” (too religious), and as such, limited in their appeal.